Agnes Robertson

Senator for Western Australia

LIB; CP, 1950–1962

Agnes Robertson was elected to the Senate for Western Australia for the first time in 1949. At sixty-seven years of age, she was the oldest woman to enter the Senate. She came to the Senate as a representative of the Liberal Party, after formidable experience as a leader of women’s political associations in Western Australia. When the Liberal Party declined to re-endorse her for election in 1955 due to her advanced age, she successfully stood for election for the Country Party. She was both the first Western Australian woman to represent the Liberal Party in the Senate and the first woman to represent the Country Party in the Parliament.

A teacher in Western Australian schools for many years, Senator Robertson spoke frequently in the Senate on the subject of education, and on the health and welfare of children. She was also active in the area of international affairs, and from February 1956 was a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs. She retired from Parliament in 1962 at the age of eighty.